British Pornography Traffic Falls Following Identity Verifications, Yet Virtual Private Network Usage Spikes, States Watchdog

Visitor numbers to adult content sites in the UK has seen a notable drop after the roll-out of age-checking measures earlier this year, as reported by the country's communications watchdog. Concurrently, the adoption of specialist software designed to circumvent these barriers has risen.

Immediate Drop in Visitor Figures After Rule Implementation

The introduction of age verification on 25 July caused an immediate decline in traffic to popular pornography sites, including the top provider in the UK. Figures indicates that visitor numbers to this site in August reached 9.8 million, a drop of 1.5 million from the equivalent month in 2024.

In total, visitor numbers to the 10 most-visited adult services in the UK have now settled at a markedly decreased volume than before the end-of-July deadline. Subsequent data suggests this slump in viewing continued past August.

Surge in VPN Usage to Evade Checks

In response to the new rules, use of VPN software—which can bypass geographic restrictions by routing internet traffic through another country—increased dramatically following 25 July.

Usage peaked at over 1.4 million in mid-August, up from around 650,000 users before the verification began. However, the watchdog noted that VPN usage has afterwards decreased, with current figures at approximately 900,000. It added that the level of daily VPN use is “much lower” than user numbers for adult sites.

Young People Taking Action to Damaging Material

In other findings, the regulator's report found that about 60% of young people aged 11 to 17 had taken action after seeing distressing content on the internet. Actions included reporting the material to the site to muting the person who shared it.

This survey was carried out prior to new regulations came into force that compel social media companies to stop children from seeing harmful content, such as material related to suicide and adult material. The most common way young people encountered such content was by looking through a platform feed, suggesting that algorithms were serving inappropriate material.

Government Announce Review of Pornography Laws

Separately, the ministers announced it would examine the criminal law relating to pornography to assess whether it is effective in the modern online world.

“The examination will investigate the effectiveness of the existing law in regarding criminalising, among other things, damaging depictions of incest and any forms of pornography which encourage the abuse of children,” stated a justice minister.

Campaigners Call For Tighter Online Regulations

Campaigners for tighter control of adult content have urged the government to outlaw so-called “barely legal” material. This includes content featuring simulated familial abuse or that appears to promote abuse by using youthful adults dressed as children.

Suggested changes to government bills aim to:

• Ban pornography where performers are mimicking children, often filmed in settings like children’s bedrooms.
• Extend the crime of creating an exploitative portrayal of a child to include material where an adult plays the role of a child.
• Introduce stricter regulation on familial abuse pornography, which research suggests is heavily recommended by platform algorithms.
• Add further controls on “nudification” software, potentially making it an offence to possess tools designed to create private images without permission.
• Establish a new, separate regulatory body to perform inspections on pornography sites and respond to reports of illegal content.

The advocates contend that these measures would ensure the safeguards that have been enforced for years offline finally are extended to the digital age.